4 Wednesday, February 24.1993 OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN IN OUR OPINION KU Legal Services works; funding shouldn't be cut Tonight, Student Senate will decide whether to cut significant funding from KU Legal Services. If Senate does, they will be greatly impeding on the Legal Service's mission — to serve students. During the past two years, Student Senate has financed Legal Services with $186,781 a year. For this money, students have had at their service three fulltime attorneys and four legal interns. This legal staff served over 2,850 students during the 1991-92 school year. The staff is able to advise students in all points of law from traffic violations to landlord-tenant problems to criminal and civil rights violations. And in certain cases, Legal Services attorneys can represent students in court. Compared to other programs funded by Senate, Legal Services is one of the most cost-effective to students. For example, of the 2,850 who used the service, an average of $65.54 is spent per person. On the other hand, 6,130 students have bought bus passes this spring. Senate spent $333,950 on the bus system, an average of $54.48 per student. However, when you factor in that every person must by a bus pass at $50 each semester, students are actually being charged $154.48. The only limit to the number of students Legal Services serves is it's resource of staff members. This is something Student Senate is trying cut. It is clear that KU Legal Services is one of the most successful programs funded by Senate. However, this point wasn't made very clear to the majority of the finance committee. Legal Services requested a funding increase to $220,483. This funding increase would cover staff salary increases that haven't occurred in two years and the purchase of much needed supplies to assist the staff in their jobs like a computer, fax machine and additions to their library. Going into the finance committee, proponents of the increase were confident in their position. Instead they walked out having suffered a $71,126 cut in their funding request and a $37,424 cut in what they had for the previous two years. Finance committee suggested that Legal Services be given $149,357 for the next two years. This cut is unacceptable, and students should not let it stand. If forced to live under the cuts, Legal Service will have to cut their staff in half. Legal Services may be forced to turn students away on certain legal matters, leaving them to turn to local attorneys, many of whom charge around $85 an hour. Currently, students who call into Legal Services have to wait until March 17 to be scheduled into an appointment time. Cutting Legal Service's funding isn't sensible. Funding Legal Services to at least the current level is the responsible and most just action for students. As late as last spring, Senate was seeking to expand the responsibilities of Legal Services by allowing them to offer advice to students in matters against the University. Does cutting Legal Services' budget mean the Senate has abandoned this worthy idea? Time is short. To express your feelings, you can contact senators in their office at 864-3710. Encourage them to maintain the strength of KU Legal Services. It is a program that works and should be allowed to work in the future. STEPHEN MARTINO FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD Kansan Editorial Board Kris Belden, Greg Farmer, Jeff Hays, Vered Hankin, Kyle Kickhaefer, Stephen Martino, Jolinda Matthews, Colleen McCain, Chris Moeser, Simon Naldoza, David Olson, Jeff Reynolds, Chris Ronan, and Michael Taylor Kansan takes unusual step to give law students a voice Since Thursday, when the Kansan editorial board called for the resignation of Robert Jerry, dean of law, and Mr. Johnson flowed steadily into the newsroom. We have heard or read opinions on all sides of the issue, and we have printed or will print many of the responses on this page. But it became clear to us that the opinion of an important segment of the University community would not matter unless we took unusual steps to print it. On Sunday, a woman who said she was a third-year law student came to the newsroom and handed a letter to the editor. He said *am* is the editorial editor. He and I read it. When we reached the end of the letter, which was in support of the editorial board's call for Jerry's resignation, we realized that no one had signed it. The Kansan's policy regarding letters is that all letters must be signed. We asked the woman why the letter, which was signed "a large group of second- and third-year law students," did not contain the students' names. She said, "To put our names on that paper, I thought we should write which wrote in support of Jerry on Friday, would be academic and professional suicide." We believed that the students' opinion was one that needed to be said and that we were in a position to say it. Therefore, we decided I would write this column, using the students' letter 'att its anchor. I spent Sunday and Monday trying to verify that the 12 students the woman said had participated in writing the letter actually had. The woman supplied me with her telephone number and those of four others. I talked to five people, four men and the one woman, who said they had participated in the writing of the letter. Three of those I spoke to said 12 of the 521 KU law students had participated. The woman said the others either could not talk to me because of other commitments or would not talk to me out of fear that I could not protect their identities. I believe them when they say 12 students wrote the letter. KANSAN EDITOR Their reasoning for not wanting their names on the letter is sad but rational. In the law school, students are graded in comparison to other students, they said. The grading system is supposed to be anonymous. One of the reasons for this extremely subjective. An essay is written, and the professor compares the essays to one another, ranks them from top to bottom and gives the top ones good grades and the bottom ones bad ones." Another of the students I spoke to said, "A faculty member or a student can write in support of Dean Jerry and sign their names. That's not going to result in any negative consequences and may, in fact, produce positive ones. But faculty and students who oppose the dean cannot say so for the record. The faculty can't say they want it, but students depend on the people in the law school for grades and job recommendations. The intensely political atmosphere at the law school makes voicing opposition to it impossible." Another of the students I spoke to said, "We are sorry that we have to be this way. We would love to be able to teach lives and speak our minds. But we can." So because we believe that one of a newspaper's most important roles is to make known the concerns of those who feel they have no voice, we are printing the law students' letter here. We are distressed that some of the brightest and most talented professors would sign the letter to the editor in support of Dean Jerry that appeared in Friday's Kansan. Many law students agree with the Kansan's editorial calling for Dean Jerry's resignation. For the last two years, the law school has been mocked by the police, who have done nothing but further his own causes, and the law school is much worse for it. Contrary to the statement in the letter signed by the law faculty, the problems at the law school are of Dean Jerry's making. Dean Jerry failed to handle the sexual harassment episode quickly and responsibly. As a result of his mismanagement, it got out of hand. Had the women involved received proper treatment from the dean, they never would have gone through with it. And the other way when he was aware of Professor Tonkovich's activities with first-year law students. The dean should have addressed the problem with Tonkovich before it ever got so far out of control Dean Jerry's "innovative" fee proposal (as the faculty put it) was completely devious and unnecessary. Dean Jerry informed the leaders of law student organizations about the fee increase in May, right before finals, when students were too busy to do anything about it. Then he pushed his proposal through the Board of Regents during the summer; when few students were on campus to complain. In the fall we received a memo that was written by a memo that was put in our books after we purchased them. Nothing could be done about this fee increase; it was a done-deal, as Dean Jerry said in a meeting he held after students returned to campus. The fee increase is primarily being used to increase faculty salaries, with a small amount going to improve the law library. While the law faculty will complain because their salaries are in the lower quarter of law faculty salaries across the country, they have never mentioned the fact that their salaries are among the highest at KU, with few professors earning less than $70,000 for a nine-month appointment. In addition, the cost of living in Lawrence is among the lowest in the nation. We don't see any faculty members struggling to make ends meet. Many students are angry about this fee increase but few will complain because we fear retaliation from faculty members who are responsible for our grades and who we rely on for job recommendations. The atmosphere is such at the law school that students are afraid to speak out. Dean Jerry has embarrassed the entire law school, not just himself, by his latest fiasco — the Washburn memo. The faculty claims Dean Jerry worked to make amends after the memo was leaked. But it was reported in the Topека Capital-Journal that the dean's visit to Washburn to apologize was viewed as completely insincere by Washburn law students. Dean Jerry shallow apology for one minute. Dean Jerry regrets what he wrote in the memo because he got caught, not because he didn't mean it. The best thing for the KU law school would be for Dean Jerry to resign. He has done nothing for the school except make it a source of ridicule. We would all be better off if Dean Jerry took his self-serving programs to another university. Kansan editor Greg Farmer is an otai thesen majoring in journalism. STAFF COLUMNIST Flu provides equal access for all in dorm community "Dorm life, it's the sharing experience" the college brochures claim. "Where else can you meet such interesting people?" ask the posters in an attempt to sell you the dubious pleasures of communal living. This week I came to understand a whole new interpretation of the phrase "sharing experience" that the college brochures decline to mention. It is usually taken for granted that living in a dorm means sharing rooms, bathrooms and even the extravagantly loud music from eight doors down the corridor, but they don't tell you that communal living also means sharing every cough, cold and snuffle floating around the place. In the past few days I have come to experience this new definition of "sharing" for myself. An overly caring friend breathed on me and now I am numbered with a thick, rich, bubbling cold laced with an erratic temperature all of my very own. This is definitely the time when you fervently wish that you hadn't met all those interesting people and expanded your cultural horizons quite so far, but then again trying be a hermit in a confined space that holds 700 other people. Yes, that sharing experience certainly becomes less of a rosy option when the dorm flu is lurking. As you lie in bed surrounded by a multitude of snotty Kleenex and mango oranges, that desolate one bedroom apartment on the Kansas plains many miles from civilization becomes a much more tempesting option rather than another stint at your dorm. The annoying thing is that lying in bed suddenly doesn't become all that enjoyable either. For the first time in ages you have the excuse to lie in and veg out, yet for some irritating reason you wake up at 6 a.m. and can't go back to sleep again. Maybe that ache in your leg refuses to let you stay comfortable for more than five seconds. Even more horrish is the huge pile of books on your desk which starts to give you guilt trip as you lie idling the time away in bed. Despite the fact that you have a temperature any furnace would be proud of, those books still beckon you from the other side of the room. On the other hand, maybe we should be applauding the communal illness instead of cursing it. After all, the hall flu has achieved what all dorm directors aspire to be. Any self-respecting virus is efficient, thorough and above all equal in everything it does. Yes, your friendly neighborhood illness is a shining example of diligence and dedication. If one person has Flu in your corridor at the beginning of the week then you can guarantee that the whole hall is coughing and sputtering before the week is out. Maybe next time you curse the dorm virus, remember that it has achieved what others have failed to do. Nowhere else can you find a better democrat than the highly contagious hall lurgy. Surely we should be applauding this egalitarian in our midst. No doubt about it, the democratic virus is a role model for us all. Bill Clinton should take note! Francesca Glyn-Jones is a Ludlow, England junior majoring in American studies. KANSAN STAFF Editors Aust. Managing ... Justin Naupq News ... Monique Guelain Campus ... David Mitchell Editorial ... Stephen Martino Campus ... KC Trau Sports ... David Mitchell Photos ... Mark Rowlands Radio Team ... Lynne McMahon Graphics ... Dan Schauer Wire ... Tiffany Lasha Hurt Assistant Editors Aasae. Editorial ... Jon Warner Aasae. Campus ... Chris Mooseer Asst. Compound ... Christine Laue Aasae. Sports ... Stacy Morford Reporters Vicki Bode ... Matt Burton Joe Delphanen ... David Dorey Matt Dovle ... Dan England Ben Grove ... Martin Mack Will Levine ... Frank McClarye Tenian MacMcIlennick ... Brady Primmer Jim Reece...Brett Riga Todd Selfert...Blake Spummy Jay Williams...Era Wolf Scott Anderson...Shelly Solan Copy Chiefs Copy Editors Heather Anderson...Aaron Baker J.R. 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